Over the past several years, there has been a tremendous increase in the need for higher performance communications networks. To satisfy the increasing demand of bandwidth and speed, pluggable transceiver modules (optical modules) are being used in network equipment (e.g., switches, routers, etc.) The line card may have various port configurations and not all ports may be populated with optical transceivers, resulting in one or more open ports. The open ports are a source of airflow leakage, which may impact cooling performance of the operating optical modules and may also lead to EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) leakage and contamination, thereby impacting standard compliance and reliability.
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the drawings.